Method for Performing Radio Link Control with Round Trip Time Awareness, and Associated Apparatus

1. A method for performing radio link control (RLC) with round trip time (RTT) awareness, the method being applied to an electronic device, the method comprising: dynamically estimating an RTT of transmission/retransmission; and based upon the RTT, dynamically adjusting a status prohibit timer value of a status prohibit timer for performing RLC.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the step of dynamically estimating the RTT of transmission/retransmission further comprises: dynamically estimating the RTT of transmission/retransmission by detecting a time period between a first time point and a second time point, wherein the first time point represents time of sending a negative acknowledgement (NACK) status report, and the second time point represents time of value transient of a protocol variable corresponding to an RLC receive window of the electronic device.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the NACK status report is a NACK status protocol data unit (PDU).

4. The method of claim 2 , wherein the protocol variable represents a boundary of the RLC receive window.

5. The method of claim 2 , wherein the protocol variable indicates a possible sequence number (SN) of protocol data units (PDUs).

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the step of dynamically adjusting the status prohibit timer value of the status prohibit timer for performing RLC further comprises: dynamically adjusting the status prohibit timer value by applying at least one predetermined function to a plurality of samples of the dynamically estimated RTT.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the at least one predetermined function comprises a weighted average function.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the at least one predetermined function comprises a screening function for discarding non-qualified samples of the dynamically estimated RTT that fall outside a range of a predetermined interval.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the step of dynamically adjusting the status prohibit timer value of the status prohibit timer for performing RLC further comprises: dynamically adjusting the status prohibit timer value to be greater than the dynamically estimated RTT.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the step of dynamically adjusting the status prohibit timer value of the status prohibit timer for performing RLC further comprises: based upon the RTT, dynamically adjusting the status prohibit timer value of the status prohibit timer for performing RLC, in order to decrease probability of repeated data protocol data unit (PDU) retransmission.

11. An apparatus for performing radio link control (RLC) with round trip time (RTT) awareness, the apparatus comprising at least one portion of an electronic device, the apparatus comprising: a processing circuit arranged to control operations of the electronic device, wherein the processing circuit comprises: an estimation module arranged to dynamically estimate an RTT of transmission/retransmission; and an adjustment module, wherein based upon the RTT, the adjustment module dynamically adjusts a status prohibit timer value of a status prohibit timer for performing RLC.

12. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein the estimation module dynamically estimates the RTT of transmission/retransmission by detecting a time period between a first time point and a second time point; and the first time point represents time of sending a negative acknowledgement (NACK) status report, and the second time point represents time of value transient of a protocol variable corresponding to an RLC receive window of the electronic device.

13. The apparatus of claim 12 , wherein the NACK status report is a NACK status protocol data unit (PDU).

14. The apparatus of claim 12 , wherein the protocol variable represents a boundary of the RLC receive window.

15. The apparatus of claim 12 , wherein the protocol variable indicates a possible sequence number (SN) of protocol data units (PDUs).

16. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein the adjustment module dynamically adjusts the status prohibit timer value by applying at least one predetermined function to a plurality of samples of the dynamically estimated RTT.

17. An apparatus for performing radio link control (RLC) with round trip time (RTT) awareness, the apparatus comprising at least one portion of an electronic device, the apparatus comprising: a processing circuit arranged to control operations of the electronic device, wherein the processing circuit comprises: an estimation module arranged to dynamically estimate an RTT awareness index according to at least one predetermined estimation function; and an adjustment module, wherein based upon the RTT awareness index, the adjustment module dynamically adjusts a status prohibit timer value of a status prohibit timer for performing RLC.

18. The apparatus of claim 17 , wherein the estimation module monitors at least one factor regarding the electronic device, and estimates the RTT awareness index by applying the at least one predetermined estimation function to the at least one factor.

19. The apparatus of claim 18 , wherein the at least one factor comprises a ratio of energy per modulating bit to noise spectral density, a received signal code power, a propagation delay, and/or a condition of whether the electronic device is moving.

20. The apparatus of claim 18 , wherein the at least one factor comprises a number of out of window protocol data units (PDUs) dropped by an RLC layer of the processing circuit due to redundant transmission, a ratio of the out of window PDUs to a plurality of PDUs under consideration, and/or application layer throughput.